"Well, as I said before, for me it is more of a moral choice," I admit. "I could not leave you to your fate and let them send Drax to you. Maybe I frame it as duty, but do not take it the wrong way. I am also an alpha, and I find you very attractive. I cannot deny that my body has a say in this too." I try to keep my tone light.
He stays quiet for a moment. I cannot tell how my little speech landed, but I still sense turbulent emotions in him.
What else can I do? I think about it, and then add, "There is something else too. A part of me is starting to believe that maybe, despite everything, there could be a way for us to… you know, mean something to each other." I let out a cautious breath. "Someday?"
I realize how awkward that sounded, how vague and open to interpretation I left it. But to my surprise, Salt seems to react positively. Something in him eases, almost like a release.
I do not know what that means for his plans, but apparently that small hint of hope for a shared future gave him something he needed to relax a little.
Does he enjoy the idea that I see him as more than a hookup, maybe even someone I could actually be in a real relationship with?
After a moment, he takes two more sips of wine, then sets the bottle aside and corks it.
We stay like that for a bit longer, him resting against my chest, before I slowly move my arms forward and wrap them around his stomach, pulling him closer.
He holds his breath for a second, as if the gesture took him by surprise, but then he seems to accept the new position.
"Alright, time for the looong stories," he sighs. "Ready?"
"Go ahead. We have all evening."
"It all started before I was even born, with my dad and his… irresponsibility."
"Wow! You’re going that far?"
Salt snorts. "Yeah, it’s the whole drama starting point."
"Okay, then hit me with it."
He begins to speak, his fingers absently playing with the little foam hills formed by the bath salts.
"My dad had a thing for older men with status. He got preg by his own college professor, but they kept the relationship hidden to protect the guy’s career. Senu was born as a kind of secret. My dad was super frustrated about it, not interested in caring for a newborn. At the time, he lived in a duplex he had inherited as an only child. He had a neighbor named Lloyd, someone he often vented to, and he pushed the baby onto the guy to babysit. One day, Lloyd had a cousin visiting, a colonelwho was on leave from the military. My dad was, of course, instantly taken with the guy, who was ridiculously handsome and had status. They fucked. My dad did not realize that just a few days later his heat would start. He did not think it could happen again so soon after giving birth to Senu."
"What about the professor?" I ask quietly.
"He had no idea about the affair. When my dad’s heat started, they used protection, but the professor wasn’t shocked when it turned out my dad was pregnant again. After all, a similar thing had happened with Senu."
"Your dad didn’t tell him, even after he found out he was pregnant?"
"No. He knew damn well that the colonel wasn’t husband material. He decided I would be something like a cuckoo’s egg," Salt’s tone turns bitter. "But the professor was blond, my dad had light-brown hair, and I came out different. When I was about a year old, with a ridiculously thick mop of jet-black hair, he did a genetic test and found out I wasn’t his. They had a huge fight, and the professor left."
"Well… I kind of get it. He got straight-up lied to."
"I get it too. My dad tried to reach out to the colonel. For a short while, the man promised he would make things right. He even sent my dad some money. But Lloyd, the cousin he had been staying with during leave, told my dad straight up what kind of man the guy really was. He told him about six other children, about the trail of pregnant omegas the colonel had left behind, and how he was basically absent from all of their lives."
"Seven kids in total? Yeah. Definitely not great partner material."
"And all starting with the letter S! Sun, Sage, Stone, Seth, Sirius, Soren, Salt."
"Wow, cool names. Do you know them?"
"Met them a few times during funerals, for my father and granddad. No close relationship."
"Did anything come out of your dad's attempts to, you know, make the colonel a part of your life?"
Salt sighs. "Sadly, no. My dad really hoped things would be different with us, because being a single dad was hard on him. But it never happened. The colonel was a deadbeat."
"Sounds like a mess."
